Jennifer Aniston has shunned so-called “cancel culture”, stating that not everyone should be put in the same “basket” as disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein.
In a new interview, the 54-year-old Friends star spoke about the hot-button topic, which refers to when someone is shunned after saying or doing something that is deemed socially or morally unacceptable.
“I’m so over cancel culture,” Aniston told The Wall Street Journal. “I probably just got cancelled by saying that. I just don’t understand what it means.”
“Is there no redemption?” she challenged. “I don’t know. I don’t put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket.”
Weinstein, 71, the former Hollywood producer, is currently behind bars serving a 39-year prison sentence on four counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
“He’s not a guy, you’re like, ‘God, I can’t wait to hang out with Harvey.’ Never. You were actually like, ‘Oh, God, OK, suck it up’,” Aniston said.
While she said she hadn’t personally been harassed by Weinstein, she recounted a time “he came to visit me on a movie to pitch me a movie”.
“And I do remember consciously having a person stay in my trailer,” Aniston admitted.
Weinstein told the publication that Aniston had “never had any uncomfortable instances with me”.
Jennifer Aniston and Harvey Weinstein— (Getty Images)
Aniston currently stars in Apple TV+’s hit drama The Morning Show, which premieres its third season on 13 September.
The series, which also stars Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup and Julianna Margulies, follows the dramatic aftermath of a fictional breakfast show whose big-time news anchor is hit with a series of allegations.
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Elsewhere in the interview, Aniston opened up about how her parents’ relationship impacted her own dating life.
She confessed that, after she saw the dynamic of her parents, John Aniston and Nancy Dow – who divorced in 1980 – it hasn’t been easy for her to enter a relationship herself.
“It was always a little bit difficult for me in relationships, I think, because I really was kind of alone. I don’t know,” Aniston said. “My parents, watching my family’s relationship, didn’t make me kind of go: ‘Oh, I can’t wait to do that.’”
Aniston was recently the subject of controversy after she reacted to a post shared by fellow actor Jamie Foxx that some branded “antisemitic”.
The row began after Jewish news company A Wider Frame shared a screenshot of Foxx’s Instagram post that was captioned: “They killed this dude name Jesus...What do you think they’ll do to you?”
A Wider Frame criticised the “horrifically antisemitic” message, highlighting how Jewish deicide – or the conspiracy that the Jews killed Jesus – has fuelled dangerous antisemitism for centuries.
Aniston was dragged into the row as the screenshot showed someone using her name appeared to have “liked” Foxx’s original post.
“This really makes me sick,” Aniston wrote over the news organisation’s post, calling Foxx out. “I did not ‘like’ this post on purpose or by accident.
“And, more importantly, I want to be clear to my friends and anyone hurt by this showing up on their feeds – I do NOT support any form of antisemitism,” The Morning Show actor continued. “And I truly don’t tolerate HATE of any kind. Period.”
Foxx (real name Eric Marlon Bishop) later deleted the post and offered his “deepest apologies” for any hurt he caused, explaining his post referred to a “fake friend” who betrayed the actor.
Some users accused Aniston of exacerbating the apparent misunderstanding by issuing her own comment on the matter.
“Jennifer Aniston owes Jamie Foxx an apology because this is just silly,” one person wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Journalist Brian Krassenstein noted the incident was a reminder of “how easy it is to misunderstand people and take things out of context based on different cultural ways of looking at things”.
“Jamie Foxx clearly apologised for being taken out of context. Can’t we just leave it at that?” he asked.
Aniston’s representatives did not respond to The Independent’s request for comment
